Utilitarian pieces are raw, uncontrived and highly collectable. By Janet de Silva.

From old workhorses to sought-after stylish statements, industrial pieces - some of them having endured years of wear and tear on the factory floor - are increasingly taking pride of place in some of Melbourne's most fashionable homes, apartments and warehouse conversions.

Gallery owners, art directors and fashion designers are among the clientele of the handful of Melbourne dealers who specialise in unique, utilitarian pieces that once had a working life.

Rustic work benches from former Victorian Railway workshops, steel medical cabinets from state government hospitals, bookshelves and counters made surplus from the recent restoration of the Melbourne State Library dome - apart from the raw stylistic appeal of these pieces of furniture, there is also great interest in their origins.

"People are fascinated by the stories behind these pieces. They are an important part of our heritage," says Kosta Kostoski, of Prahran's Victorian Railway Antiques.

An antique dealer for 20 years, Kostoski's enthusiasm for industrial pieces was sparked in the late 1980s after he and his wife Sylvia won the much-prized contract to appraise and dispose of the assets of Victorian Railways.");document.write("

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"I was like a kid in a lolly shop," Kostoski recalls of the day he first entered one of the old workshops at Newport.

"(Victorian Railways) produced a massive amount of infrastructure on the back of the gold rush. They had deep pockets - even through the Depression period - and they bought the most beautiful timber from all over Australia and the world."

The timber - some of it dating back to 1860 - produced workbenches, lockers, lunch-room tables - all manner of utilitarian furniture and "other bits and bobs" that Kostoski has spent the past 13 years restoring and modifying for modern domestic use.

While the end products are usually a far cry from their salvaged state, Kostoski is mindful to retain the original character of each piece. "We try to present each piece as close as possible to the way it was originally made," he says. "Part of the appeal is the aged patination of the timber that shows what has happened to these pieces over time."

A similar approach is taken by Jodie Turnbull and Charlie Scott, of the Richmond-based industrial antique store Blueprint, where the emphasis is on producing furniture to suit all types of housing, not just cavernous warehouse conversions.

Among the store's best sellers are restored timber workbenches that make attractive, but also, highly-functional, kitchen island benches. Consoles made from recycled timber and restored timber pigeon holes are also popular.

"We cut some things down to size or use them as raw materials but we certainly don't over style the pieces. We tend to let the wood speak for itself," says Turnbull, who is currently tackling the massive task of removing nails and "loads of bubble gum" from more than 100 kilometres of timber seating from the Waverley Park Stadium.

The seating will be recycled at Blueprint's own recycling plant and then sold to builders and architects as timber flooring.

Meanwhile, 20th-century design specialist Geoffrey Hatty, of his eponymous "Applied Arts" store in Prahran, has been busy restoring a container load of battered and bruised medical dispensary cabinets that he stumbled across during a visit to Latvia last year.

These sleek glass and steel cabinets - many already snapped up by Hatty's mostly Toorak and South Yarra clientele - were made in abundance by the Russians during their nationalisation of Latvia's industries after World War II.

Hatty says industrial furniture of this kind is highly collectable in Europe, particularly in Paris, where it is often combined to great effect with other furniture styles. Many of the highly sought-after steel cabinets, he says, relate back to a period in the West when "governments were very much involved with community welfare and health and today would cost an absolute fortune to make".

The widespread closure of Victorian hospitals and schools during the Kennett years seems to have boosted the supply of medical and industrial furniture around Melbourne.

"We got a heap of stuff when Kennett was in full flight," recalls Quentin Buckley, a former art teacher, whose Gertrude Street store, Industria, brings new meaning to the word "quirky".

66,0,66For the past eight years, Buckley and his wife, Sue, have travelled interstate to keep their store well-stocked with an eclectic array of industrial, commercial and medical objects.

Among some of the store's more unusual offerings is laboratory glassware, medical tools and unbreakable ceramic plates from the now-defunct Larundel psychiatric hospital.

"You'd be amazed at the number of stockbrokers who eat off these plates without knowing where they have come from," quips Buckley, for whom the appeal of industrial objects lies in their unpretentious design.

"These are things that were beautifully made but without any conscious design intent.

"They were made to do a job well for dozens of years and now hopefully they can have another life and do it just as well."

The thrill of giving new life to old working objects also appeals to Lyn Gardener, owner of the iconic Empire 111 in Albert Park.

Empire's focus is more "vintage glamour" than rustic industrial, but the interior of Gardener's home in Fitzroy - a converted leather factory - is almost a shrine to early Australian "industria", with a fully-functional commercial double Kooka stove and a massive timber workbench dominating the kitchen.

"These are stand-alone pieces that your eye gravitates towards," Gardener says. "People walk in here and the first thing they look at are the old pieces that you won't find everywhere."

Indeed you won't, with most established Melbourne dealers having already stockpiled most of the good stuff - salvaged over the past two decades - for future restoration.

And while prices have risen in the past few years - expect to pay several thousand dollars for a restored timber bench - Australian stock is considered cheap by European standards.

So cheap, that Melbourne dealers sell a surprising amount of heavy furniture to visiting or expatriate Americans and Europeans - some of whom are then up for hefty shipping costs.

Dealers Adrian Masterman-Smith and Lowen Clark, of Depot on Chapel - best known for its dining tables - say Australian industrial furniture is also highly valued for its "un-contrived" qualities. "It's the stylistic component that everyone likes. That raw, gutsy look to the furniture that makes it so easy to live with."